Dallal Al-Absi, a mother of eight, lives with her children in Zaatari refugee camp. She escaped from Daraa in Syria earlier this year and says there is nothing to do at the camp. / Kristen Gillespie

by Jabeen Bhatti, Special for USA TODAY

by Jabeen Bhatti, Special for USA TODAY

Whether by a harrowing boat trip across the Mediterranean, a mountain crossing over the Turkish border or a flight to Germany, more than 2 million Syrians have fled their war-torn country to take refuge in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt and Iraq as well as in the Gulf countries and in Europe.

Those who got away from the 30-month-old conflict share horror stories of snipers and aerial bombardment, of murdered loved ones and wounded friends, but the problems they face in their new homes varies tremendously depending on the country.

Some say they don't know where their next meal is coming from. Others worry about violence against foreigners. Many face bureaucratic hurdles to visas and bank accounts, and a hostile political situation on the ground.

"These are ordinary families, families that had homes, that had washing machines, that had a pickup truck, and their own kitchen and bathroom, and now they're facing, who knows how long, (an uncertain situation)," said Aoife McDonnell, a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). "Everybody just wants to go home â?¦ and they can't."

EGYPT: Out of one crisis, into another

By Sarah Lynch

It was around 10 p.m. when Kassem Mohammed Bakdaliya greeted a band of police at his door. They soon ushered him into a detention room where dead rats rotted on the floor. He was with dozens of other Syrians.

"I was detained for four days and they didn't tell me why," Bakdaliya said. "I suffered the same treatment by Egyptian police that I faced in Syria."

Bakdaliya, whose family is from the Syrian city of Daraa, came to Cairo more than six months ago to escape political conflict back home only to face another here in Masaken Othman, a shady slum that is home to thousands of refugees on the outskirts of Cairo.

Since Egypt's July 3 coup, aid agencies and Syrians like Bakdaliya say refugees in Egypt are facing harassment, physical assault and arbitrary arrest for belief that they support ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi.

"The situation here in Egypt is affecting Syrians," said refugee Mohammad Shihady, sitting in a run-down home in the desert complex. "They blame us for Morsi's actions."

When his son, Alaa Shihady, 14, was arbitrarily arrested in July, authorities asked him whether he was involved in pro-Morsi protests and if anyone paid him to participate.

More than 126,000 Syrian refugees in Egypt are registered with UNHCR or are awaiting registration. The Egyptian government estimates there are 300,000 Syrian refugees in the country, many of them scattered in urban neighborhoods and renting or sharing accommodation, according to UNHCR Egypt.

Since early July, at least 143 Syrians have been arrested, sometimes in their homes or places of work for lack of proper residency, UNHCR said, and some of them were deported. Many were arrested for disobeying curfew, attempting to leave the country illegally or on suspicion of violence.

On July 8, the Egyptian government announced without warning that Syrians coming to Egypt must obtain a visa and prior security clearance to enter the country.

Syrians in Masaken Othman said they face verbal harassment in streets and stores. Parents complain that their children are being denied access to education without explanation. And various non-governmental organizations working to help Syrians have closed down, said Rasha Maati, chairman of the Fard Foundation, one of the few remaining organizations that helps refugees.

The organizations "are afraid of being labeled," Maati said, as being against the Egyptian government because of perceptions that Syrians support Morsi.

"Last year I thought we were in a crisis and that the situation was catastrophic," she said. "But now, after what's happening, now is the crisis."

THE GULF: Limited visas and work, no bank accounts

By Karine G. Barzegar

Maissa Sayed, a Syrian refugee and anti-regime activist in her 20s, has lived in Qatar for more than a year now. But because Gulf countries restrict visas to Syrians, she says it is difficult for her to create a new life.

"At the beginning, I was in Doha on a temporary visa and I had to get out of Qatar every three months and then come back in," she said. "It's very hard for Syrians to get a one-year visa or even a three-month visa - it's difficult for men, and for single women it is even harder."

Although Gulf states have loudly stated their support for the uprising in Syria and provide both funds and arms to Syrian rebels, they have no desire to be a haven for the victims of the Syrian regime.

Since the Syrian conflict has begun, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have drastically reduced the number of visas of all types granted to Syrians - and the United Arab Emirates have even canceled tourist visas for Syrians until further notice.

But in the Gulf states, doors are closed for the immense majority of Syrians applying for residency - unless they are either a politician or a member of the Syrian army defecting from the regime.

For Sayed and other Syrian expatriates and refugees who already live and work in Gulf countries, getting a family visa or a visiting visa for their relatives trapped in war zones and refugee camps is also mission impossible. In Doha, the Syrian National Coalition "embassy," which opened its doors in March, has been trying to push Qatar to open its doors to more refugees.

"It was hard for Syrians to come to Gulf countries even before the revolution and now it's worse," said Nizar al-Haraki, the Syrian opposition "ambassador" in Qatar. "They are scared the Assad regime will try to create problems in their country, they are worried that Bashar al-Assad will send his own agents, infiltrators to the region to disturb it."

Once the Syrians arrive, everyday life sometimes is tricky: Besides problems getting work permits without a local sponsor, bank accounts are virtually off-limits, making it difficult to get rental contracts.

In Qatar, it is only permissible to open an account if you work for a company based there and have a resident ID card. In Dubai, Syrians report that local banks have forced them to close their accounts unless they can deposit $4,000 a month because the banks can't deal with "micro-accounts" anymore.

Meanwhile, getting out of the Gulf can be difficult as well. If a Syrian's passport has expired, it is tough to get it renewed: The local "embassy" can't issue those.

GREECE: Poverty and violence ashore

By Thodoris Skoulis

Fatme Sisi recalls the journey to Greece with a shiver.

"We arrived at night in Greece in a small boat," said Sisi, a 60-year-old refugee from Aleppo who fled Syria with four of her children in August. "Water started coming in the boat, and we almost drowned."

Sisi now lives in a run-down neighborhood of crisis-stricken Athens, where neo-fascist groups attack foreigners on a daily basis. Her new apartment is clean but the only furnishings adorning the place are five mattresses the family scavenged from the trash. Her fellow Syrians there help her family with some food and money when they can.

Thousands of immigrants make the boat-crossing to Greece, but with unemployment more than 27% and the country in recession as it has been for five years, there's not much opportunity waiting for the newly arrived Syrians.

And there is no way out, either

"We are trapped in Greece because we don't have our passports, we only have our identity cards, we left Aleppo without taking anything," Sisi said. "I want to leave for Switzerland or Sweden, but smugglers asked for 5,000 euros to get us to (the rest of) Europe. I don't even have 50 euros - we don't even have money to afford food, sometimes we don't have food for two days."

Most of her time is consumed with worry over her children, traumatized by the war. Her 35-year-old son, Jakarea, suffered a nervous breakdown and tried to commit suicide by throwing himself off their balcony. Her daughter, Samira, 21, hides under the kitchen table whenever there is a stranger in the house.

"Assad killed our relatives," she said. "Five of my children are in Syria, but I cannot contact them - I don't even know if they're alive."

And although the family has fled the snipers and bomb attacks of their devastated city, she has new fears on the streets of Athens as neo-facist attacks grow against immigrants. She has been harassed for wearing her headscarf.

"The smuggler told us that Greece is Europe and that we would be safe here," she added. "But we are disappointed."

Other Syrians express similar sentiments.

Ali al-Massoud, a 28-year-old Syrian who lives with his three children, his wife, Samira, and 11 other members of his extended family in a cramped apartment in Athens arrived here in late 2012.

Clutching bags and holding small children in their arms, the first Syrian refugees from a resettlement program bringing 5,000 people to Germany climb down the steps of a passenger airplane at Hanover Airport.

Smiles can be seen on their faces as they are greeted by officials. They walk tiredly past television cameras recording the arrival.

More than 18,000 Syrians have already been granted asylum in Germany, according to the government, making Germany the European country that hosts the most refugees from Syria.

Some of those include family members of Faris Ibrahim, a 30-year-old student who had already been studying in Germany when the war broke out and he was joined by his mother, father, sister, brother-in-law and their two children, ages 13 and 9 â?? in February after they finally decided they must leave their home in Syria's capital, Damascus.

Since arriving in Germany, the family has struggled to settle, battling to be accepted by the authorities and the challenge of learning a new language.

It is a struggle familiar to many refugees arriving in Germany. Many are unable to get a job initially, as visas allow them to find work only after they must prove it can't be done by Germans, reducing possibilities for a job.

But while Ibrahim says conditions are good for Syrians in Germany (the applications are processed more quickly than other refugees and they are given a place to live), he adds that people have less sympathy with the plight of Syrians than in other countries in the region.

"It wasn't so easy - we had to fight in terms of bureaucracy and with lots of offices, who were not really so understanding," Ibrahim said.

Germany is notorious for its complicated bureaucracy, which can baffle Germans let alone immigrants, and also for its unsympathetic civil servants, who often refuse or are unable to speak in any language apart from German.

"But for refugees, in general, it is easier here than in other countries - it is better than staying in the neighboring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon or Jordan," Ibrahim added.

Still, like most Syrians forced abroad, they are plagued by worry over family members left behind and uncertainty over the future.

"For my family, it was really hard to leave Syria, especially because they don't know when they will be able to return or whether they will ever be able to return," Ibrahim said. "They would prefer to go back to Syria, but looking at the situation, it doesn't seem like they will be able to go back anytime soon."

JORDAN: With nothing to do, boredom reigns

By Kristen Gillespie

Surrounded by endless rows of tents and identical tin caravans, people sit talking on cellphones or wander the camp with unwashed babies.

One child plays with a twisted piece of hanger he calls his toy; men hammer together pieces of tin to create small shops in the vast Zaatari refugee camp, almost 50 miles outside Jordan's capital city, Amman.

It is here, in the world's second-largest refugee camp and now Jordan's fourth-largest city, where more than 120,000 Syrians wait for peace. In the unrelenting sun in the middle of Jordan's desert, boredom reigns.

"All we do is sit at home all day and the girls go to the mosque nearby for lessons in the Quran," says Dallal al-Absi, a housewife and mother of eight children, who also cares for the two children of her husband's sister.

"I am afraid for my daughters. If a school was nearby, I would send them - but it is far, and I am worried about them going, it is not secure enough here."

Al-Absi fled her home in a village called Saham al-Jolan after it was bombed by the Syrian army arriving at Zaatari in January. In charge of overseeing the water system in their village, her husband has remained in Syria, staying at his brother's house and sleeping in a nearby shelter every night to avoid the shells and mortars that continue to rain down.

"My husband's brother's kids were all killed and our house was destroyed so we left with my children to the shelter and stayed there for about four or five days," she said.

"I came to Jordan in spite of myself. I did not want to come but my husband made me for the sake of our children, so that they can stay safe - and I had nowhere to go but Zaatari."

While some people have managed to find themselves work within the camp, which opened in July 2012, others have nothing to do with their days but sit and wait until they can return to their homes in Syria.

"Our country is better than here," said Al-Absi's daughter, 13-year-old Lama, who says she hates life in the camp. "There we go to school, we go to other places, we go out and play with our friends. But here we do not have friends â?¦ we have no one but a few relatives."